A father holds his son's hand during the Disability Pride Parade in New York City. Advocates fear changes made, or proposed, by the Trump administration will strip away crucial federal oversight and deny vulnerable children the educational services they’re guaranteed under law. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

In its quest to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, the Trump administration wants to let states police themselves when it comes to educating students with disabilities, a move many teachers and parents fear will strip away crucial federal oversight and deny vulnerable children the services they’re guaranteed under law.

In October, the Trump administration fired nearly all the employees in the U.S. Department of Education office that’s responsible for enforcing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the landmark federal civil rights law that guarantees students with disabilities the right to a free and quality public education. A federal judge blocked the layoffs a few days later, in response to a lawsuit filed by federal workers unions.

In addition to making sure states and school districts follow the law, the office distributes billions in federal funding to help states educate students with disabilities such as autism, deafness, developmental delays and dyslexia.

The court ruling halting the layoffs is likely just a temporary setback as Trump proceeds with his broader mission of closing the federal department. Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon have said their goals are to reduce bureaucracy and return more education responsibilities to the states.

Neither the Department of Education nor the White House, which are operating with fewer communications officers because of the government shutdown, responded to Stateline requests for comment.

Congress has never fully funded special education at 40% per-pupil costs promised to states under IDEA. Funding has fluctuated over the years; in 2024, it was about 10.9%. Federal IDEA funding is expected to continue, though without federal oversight from the Education Department.

Disability rights and education advocates worry that most states don’t have the resources — or, in some cases, the will — to adequately police and protect the rights of students with disabilities.

Some states in recent years have failed to provide adequate special education services, prompting investigation from the feds. Just 19 states meet the requirements for serving students with disabilities from ages 3 through 21, according to the most recent annual review from the Department of Education, released in June.

“Shifting all of that to the state and away from the feds is not something we’ve been able to wrap our heads around,” said Quinn Perry, the deputy director of the Idaho School Boards Association.

“Our state education department are excellent people, but that is a huge, drastic shift in workload they’d have to do on compliance,” she said, adding that Idaho is already facing a budget shortfall.

In Iowa, Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, the former House minority leader, said she’s concerned that without federal oversight, the state would not hold schools accountable for providing special education services. She pointed to state lawmakers’ willingness to pass Iowa’s relatively new school choice program, which directs taxpayer funding to private school tuition but does not require private schools to provide services to students with disabilities.

“There are no provisions with private school vouchers that they have to provide special education,” she said. “Those kids are left at the public schools, which have been underfunded.”

Funding gaps

IDEA passed 50 years ago this month. Before then, education for children with disabilities depended entirely on where they lived.

They were often refused admission to public and private schools that lacked the resources or the will to properly educate them. Some had to forgo education entirely, while others were shut away in poorly equipped institutions that prioritized containment over learning.

In 2022-2023, about 7.5 million students — 15% of the kids in public schools — received special education services under IDEA, according to the most recent data available from the National Center for Education Statistics, the federal agency that collects education data.

The law requires public schools to provide a “free appropriate public education” in the least restrictive environment from birth through age 21 to children and youth with disabilities. That education includes services such as additional time to complete school work, assistive technology, or even a one-on-one aide.

Some supports, such as providing large-print materials or giving a student extra time to complete a task, are low-cost. But others can be expensive for schools to provide. For example, an American Sign Language interpreter might cost $50,000 a year, said Perry, of the Idaho school boards group.

And a recent Idaho state report noted that it costs upward of $100,000 per year to educate some special education students.

Educators there are already pushing for additional funding to help fill a gap — $82.2 million in 2023 — between available state and federal funding for special education and the amount that school districts actually spend.

The state report also found that, unlike the neighboring states of Oregon, Utah and Washington, Idaho doesn’t provide additional state funding for special education beyond the base per-pupil amount allocated by the state.

The federal government currently covers less than 12% of the costs of special education services nationwide, leaving state and local governments to foot the rest, according to the National Education Association, a labor union representing 3 million educators nationally. Without federal oversight, critics fear, nobody will hold states and school districts accountable for not spending enough.

In some states, limited state funding means a disproportionate financial burden lands on individual school districts. On average, local districts are responsible for $8,160 per special education student per year, according to a report released last year by education nonprofit Bellwether that studied funding across 24 states.

The situation is so dire in Idaho that the state superintendent made special education funding her key issue for the state’s upcoming legislative session. She requested $50 million to help close the special education funding gap.

It’s an issue affecting school districts across the nation, said Perry.

“Just because [the feds] are shifting responsibility to states does not alleviate the fact that we still have a federal mandate to provide services to these kids,” Perry said. “IDEA is still the law of the land and your school district is still mandated to meet this law, but with perhaps a sprinkling in of chaos and, in a state like ours, still a gap in funding.”

At times, that funding gap has prompted some states to cut corners.

Rationed services

After a 15-month probe, the U.S. Department of Education found in 2018 that Texas had effectively rationed its special education services, capping the share of public school students who could receive those services at 8.5% of a district’s population, regardless of need and in direct violation of IDEA.

The feds also found that some Texas school districts intentionally identified fewer children as eligible for special education services if the number of those students exceeded the 8.5% threshold.

Though Republican Gov. Greg Abbott subsequently released a statement criticizing local school districts, educators and advocates blamed state legislators for recommending the caps as a way to control special education costs.

“Texas had about 5-7% of students who needed special education but were unilaterally denied it because the state decided that was too expensive,” said Lisa Lightner, a special education advocate and the mother of a student with a disability.

“Without this federal oversight, who’s to stop them from doing that again?”

Just last year, the Department of Education released Virginia from an ongoing investigation it had been under since 2019 for repeatedly failing to resolve complaints by parents of special education students.

The feds found the state had no procedures to ensure a timely resolution process for the complaints, leaving parents with little recourse when their students weren’t receiving needed services.

The federal monitoring ended in December 2024 after Virginia’s education department took corrective measures, including creating its own monitoring division, requiring additional educator training, and changing how the state handles complaints.

This year, states including Indiana, Iowa, Kansas and Mississippi were cited by the Education Department for not having systems in place that are “reasonably designed” to identify districts not complying with IDEA.

“No state gets it perfect all the time, but some states are better at it than others,” Lightner said.

Her home state of Pennsylvania has robust state oversight of special education, she said, but added that parents in some other states are panicking.

“There’s a societal mindset in some places that kids who need special education are never going to amount to anything, that they’re a drain on resources. Some people even think [allocating additional funds for their education] is giving them an advantage over other kids,” she said. “It’s an old-fashioned mindset that still exists in a lot of state leaders.”

States take notice

Some state lawmakers, troubled or encouraged by the Trump administration’s stance toward public education, have already filed their own legislation.

Republicans haven’t talked much about special education oversight, but even those at the state level have embraced the larger goal of shrinking the kind of regulation embodied by the Department of Education.

In Texas, state Rep. Andy Hopper, a Republican, filed a bill in February to abolish the state’s education agency.

“President Trump has called upon every level of government to eliminate inefficiencies and waste,” Hopper said in a statement announcing the bill, which later died in committee. “Texans pour billions into this state agency with the expectation that it will somehow improve education, but have been consistently and profoundly disappointed in the results.”

Alabama state Rep. Barbara Drummond, a Democrat, filed a bill in March to study how the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education would affect public education in Alabama.

Alabama parents are among those who sued the federal agency earlier this year over cuts to its Office for Civil Rights, claiming that investigations into alleged civil rights abuses in schools against students with disabilities and English learners have halted since Trump took office. Drummond’s bill also died in committee.

Since August, McMahon has been on a “Returning Education to the States” tour of all 50 states. She began it in Louisiana, the only state whose recent fourth-grade reading scores showed a significant increase compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to a large, congressionally mandated survey of educational progress across the states.

“There’s no one-size-fits-all in education,” she told reporters during her stop at a Baton Rouge school in August. “What works in one state may not work in another state.”

Federal law already gives states and local districts exclusive control over their own curriculum and education standards; the U.S. Department of Education can’t tell states what to teach, nor how to teach it.

Louisiana U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat, expressed concern that the dismantling of the Department of Education would remove the kind of federal oversight that has, in the past, protected students’ civil rights when state and local governments didn’t. On his podcast in August, he pointed to the need for federal intervention during the Jim Crow era when Southern states tried to maintain segregation in schools.

“We were protected to be able to have an education because of the federal government,” said Carter, who is Black. “When you start taking those protections away, that’s damning for our country and it’s a huge step in the wrong direction.”

Lightner, who has 182,000 followers on her Facebook page, said parents who comment on her posts often debate the merits of the Trump administration’s shift on special education.

But Lightner said she hasn’t seen evidence of a cohesive plan to improve special education.

“If you blow up a house, even if I gave you a few hundred thousand dollars to build a new one, that doesn’t happen overnight,” she said. “This destruction, it’s going to be years until we’re back to normal. And even ‘normal’ missed a lot of kids.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

Signs at a pro-life rally outside of the Republican National Convention in 2024. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.)

The Republican author of a bill that seeks to distinguish treatment for an ectopic pregnancy and other medical conditions from abortion said her bill was a reaction to Republicans struggling on the issue during elections and that she wants to ban abortion from conception.  

Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) and Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) introduced the bill in September and it will receive a public hearing on Wednesday in the Senate Licensing, Regulatory Reform, State and Federal Affairs committee. 

The authors have framed the bill as one to help clarify Wisconsin’s laws surrounding abortion by redefining certain medical procedures as not abortions.

At a September town hall posted to YouTube, hosted by the Wisconsin Conservative Coalition (WCC), a nonpartisan association of three conservative groups from the northeast part of the state, Goeben participated on a panel with Jacque and Reps. Nate Gustafson (R-Omro) and Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc). 

“It’s very simple,” Goeben said of her bill. “It is taking out the molar pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy — all of these things that we wouldn’t think of that as an abortion, but when there is an election we get killed on that on an emotional stance of, “Oh, this woman was going to die because she couldn’t get her health care,” Goeben said.

During the 2024 elections, Republicans lost 14 legislative seats under Wisconsin’s new voting maps. In many of those races, abortion was a major discussion point for Democratic candidates who criticized their Republican opponents for their positions on the issue. 

More will be at stake in 2026 for Republicans, who will be fighting to hold onto the majorities in the Senate and Assembly that they have held for 15 years. Democrats would need to win an additional five seats in the Assembly and an additional two in the Senate to flip each of those houses in 2026.

According to recent polling by Marquette Law School, abortion policy has declined as a “most important” issue among voters across all partisan groups in 2025 as compared to 2022, although 50% of respondents still said they were “very concerned” and 23% said they were “somewhat concerned” about the issue. 

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federally protected abortion rights, health care providers in Wisconsin worried about criminal penalties under an 1849 law considered a near-total abortion ban denied care to women who faced miscarriage and life-threatening pregnancy complications.

But Goeben called claims that women are restricted from receiving health care under restrictive abortion laws are “an out and out lie.”

Her bill, she said, takes away ammunition from Democrats who criticize abortion bans as harmful to women. “I would love to see our Democrat friends vote against this bill because it is, again, simply defining — these things are not abortion,” Goeben said.

Abortion access in Wisconsin has been in flux since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. For about 15 months, abortion access was effectively eliminated. The state Supreme Court then found in 2023 that the 1849 law no longer applied to abortion since  subsequent laws regulating abortion had been passed after 1849, making abortions up to 20 weeks legal. 

Strict abortion laws have also resulted in high-profile cases in states including Texas and Georgia where women have died preventable deaths because they were denied timely care.

In recent months, access at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, the state’s largest provider of abortion services, was paused due to federal changes and then restarted about a month later. The upheaval in access has caused confusion among patients and providers as reported by Wisconsin Public Radio.

Some medical experts told the Wisconsin Watch that Goeben’s bill is misleading because it  attempts to distinguish medical procedures that end pregnancy under certain circumstances from abortion, which it defines as not including those circumstances.

Goeben said during the September panel discussion that she hopes the state eventually reverts to banning abortion at conception and told attendees that they could make that possible by helping elect candidates who align with their beliefs on the issue. 

“[The bill], unfortunately, isn’t changing the 20 weeks, which I hope at some point we can go back to conception, which is where life begins,” Goeben said. “You need to get online and educate and you need to vote in primaries for people who are 100% pro-life. We are going to have upcoming elections in safe seats. In those safe, conservative seats, are you getting a candidate who is 100% pro-life and is going to stand for that because there are people who are going to run in those seats who are not.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

A sign in a grocery store indicates that SNAP benefits are accepted. Wisconsin's health department, which administers the state's FoodShare program funded through SNAP, said Tuesday November benefits will be reduced and could take weeks to be paid. (Getty Images)

Despite court orders for the federal government to resume sending federal funds to the states for food assistance programs for the month of November, the money will take weeks or longer to arrive and will only cover a portion of the benefits people are supposed to receive, Wisconsin’s health department confirmed Tuesday.

The delay is a result of the federal decision to spend only the contingency funds said aside for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, according to a statement late Tuesday afternoon from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services communications office. DHS administers Wisconsin SNAP benefits through the state’s FoodShare program.

SNAP benefits stopped flowing Nov. 1 as a result of the federal government shutdown, which has halted federal spending in all but some specific functions of the government.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture declined to tap other funding sources in order to cover the full benefits for November, a department official said in a court document filed Monday.

About 700,000 Wisconsin residents receive SNAP benefits through the FoodShare program, according to DHS. Benefits are distributed to an electronic “QWEST” card that is used like a debit card to purchase food at participating grocers and other vendors.

According to DHS, because of the benefit reduction, states must recalculate the benefits they send to households enrolled in the SNAP program. States must then send an electronic file with the revised benefit information to the electronic benefit transfer businesses that distribute the funds to members’ QWEST cards.

“Due to the many steps that need to be taken as well as the likely bottleneck of only having two vendors that can deploy benefits to cards, the Trump Administration indicates this process will take weeks to months instead of days compared to the timeline if the federal government had chosen to provide full November benefits to states,” DHS said in an update sent to news organizations Tuesday afternoon.

“Because the federal government chose a more complex pathway, the federal government will need to issue guidance to states and then states will have to determine how to allocate partial benefits to each household,” the DHS update stated. “This means the timeline for partial November benefits to be added to [each] member’s cards is still to be determined.”

A provision in the federal mega-bill cutting spending and taxes that President Donald Trump signed July 4 will further complicate the process, according to DHS.

States with error rates of more than 6% in their SNAP programs will bear additional administrative costs. Paying partial benefits rather than full benefits “will force states to use an unprecedented process instead of the process we would typically use,” according to the DHS update, “which has the potential to jeopardize Wisconsin’s and other states’ error rates.”

DHS has asked the Legislature to allocate an additional $69.2 million to the department to cover anticipated increases in administrative costs and hire additional staff to help keep Wisconsin’s error rate low.

Tables that USDA distributed Tuesday indicate that in 48 states, including Wisconsin, the reduced November benefits will range from $149 a month for a one-person household to $497 for a four-person household and $894 for a household of eight. The DHS update noted that “we caution that the tables don’t necessarily reflect what a family would receive.”

Although the Trump administration agreed in court filings to partially fund November’s SNAP benefits, Trump backtracked on that pledge with a social media post, saying that the benefits would not be released until Democrats in Congress agreed to reopen the government.

Tuesday’s update from DHS alluded to the post, stating that the department is “aware of the president’s recent social media message from this morning” — after DHS received the USDA message and the reduced benefit amounts — “and will continue to monitor activity from the federal government.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

President George W. Bush, right, and the late Vice President Dick Cheney in the Oval Office on Jan. 24, 2002. (Photo from National Archives)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, an architect and chief practitioner of neoconservative foreign policy who was an influential figure among a generation of Republicans, died Monday.

Cheney died at 84 of complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement from his family published by several news outlets.

Cheney’s decades in Washington included stints as White House chief of staff to President Gerald Ford; as Wyoming’s U.S. House member from 1979 to 1989; and as secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush. 

Cheney then served as vice president under Bush’s son George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009.

Cheney was best known for pursuing an aggressive foreign policy to protect American interests, including as a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

That war, in which nearly 5,000 U.S. servicemembers and untold Iraqis died over eight years, without showing that the ruling Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction or had any ties to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, turned public opinion against neoconservatives.

Cheney kept a relatively low profile after leaving office, other than to endorse his daughter Liz Cheney for the U.S. House seat he once held. He underwent a heart transplant in 2012 after a fifth heart attack.

Cheney rift with Trump

President Donald Trump, in his first campaign for the White House, criticized the Iraq War and the George W. Bush administration, creating a rift within the GOP in which Trump ultimately prevailed.

Trump’s feud with the Cheneys later intensified while Liz Cheney held the U.S. House seat from Wyoming. 

After voting for Trump twice, Liz Cheney consistently strongly criticized Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and later served as vice chair of the House committee investigating that matter.

The younger Cheney’s involvement with that probe resulted in her ouster from House Republican leadership and, eventually, her House seat itself.

In 2022, Dick Cheney, who had mostly retired from public life, appeared in an ad for his daughter’s reelection campaign. 

Wearing a large cowboy hat and speaking directly to camera, he called Trump a coward who “tried to steal the last election, using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters have rejected him.”

“He lost his election, and he lost big,” Cheney said. “I know it. He knows it. Deep down, I think most Republicans know it.”

In the 2024 election, both Liz and Dick Cheney endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris against Trump.

Trump did not release an official statement on Cheney’s death Tuesday. 

At a White House press briefing Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was “aware” of Cheney’s passing and White House flags had been lowered to half-staff, in accordance with law. 

She did not answer questions about Trump’s involvement in funeral arrangements or if he’d spoken to Cheney family members.

Praise for Cheney’s patriotism

Most other high-ranking officials across party lines in the nation’s capital sent well-wishes to the Cheney family and recognized the former vice president as an influential figure.

“Dick was a calm and steady presence in the White House amid great national challenges,” George W. Bush wrote in a statement. “I counted on him for his honest, forthright counsel, and he never failed to give his best. He held to his convictions and prioritized the freedom and security of the American people. For those two terms in office, and throughout his remarkable career, Dick Cheney’s service always reflected credit on the country he loved.”

President Joe Biden praised Cheney’s devotion to public service and his family.

“Guided by a strong set of conservative values, Dick Cheney devoted his life to public service,” he wrote on X. “While we didn’t agree on much, he believed, as I do, that family is the beginning, middle, and end.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also praised Cheney’s willingness to oppose Trump.

“Dick Cheney was a patriotic American who loved his country,” she wrote. “While we strongly disagreed on most policy issues, his patriotism was clear when he returned to the House Floor to commemorate the first anniversary of January 6th. We all saw then how proud Vice President Cheney was to see his daughter, Liz, follow in her father’s footsteps to serve in the House with courage and integrity.”

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune commended Cheney in a Tuesday floor speech, saying he “played a key role in shaping policy in many of the most consequential issues of his day.” 

“Dick Cheney was a lifelong public servant who believed very deeply in our country and brought his considerable knowledge and intelligence to its service,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, paid tribute to Cheney’s public service at the start of his daily press conference.

“Scripture is very clear: We give honor where honor is due,” Johnson said. “As you know, Dick Cheney served as vice president, he served as a secretary of Defense. He served as a congressman, of course, in Wyoming, and as the youngest chief of staff to any president in the history of the country. And so the honor is certainly due to him.”

Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican who is the longest-serving member of Wyoming’s congressional delegation, said in a social media post the state “mourns the passing of Vice President Dick Cheney.”

“Dick’s career has few peers in American life,” Barrasso wrote. “His unflinching leadership shaped many of the biggest moments in domestic and U.S. foreign policy for decades. Dick will be remembered as a towering figure who helped guide the course of history in Wyoming, the United States, and around the world.”

Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report.

Volunteers with the Capital Area Food Bank distribute items to furloughed federal workers in partnership with No Limits Outreach Ministries in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Tuesday failed for the 14th time to advance a stopgap spending bill to fund the government, as the ongoing shutdown hit 35 days and is now tied with the shutdown of 2018-2019 as the longest ever.

The 54-44 vote was nearly identical to the previous 13 votes, as Republicans and Democrats remained unwilling to change positions. The legislation extending funding to Nov. 21 needed at least 60 votes to advance, per the Senate’s legislative filibuster. 

Even though the upper chamber has been unable to pass a stopgap spending measure for more than a month, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday that he believes senators are “making progress.” 

He floated keeping the Senate in session next week. The chamber is scheduled to be in recess for the Veterans Day holiday. 

“We’ll think through that as the week progresses, but I guess my hope would be we’ll make some progress,” he said.

Thune added that any stopgap spending bill will need to be extended past Nov. 21, “because we’re almost up against the November deadline right now.”

Duffy warns of flight ‘chaos’ due to staff shortages

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned during a Tuesday press conference at the Department of Transportation that if the government shutdown continues into next week, it would lead to “chaos” and certain airspace would need to be closed due to a shortage of air traffic controllers who have continued to work amid the shutdown.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at a separate press conference at the Capitol that he would bring the House back to vote on a stopgap spending measure if the Senate extends the funding date.

“If the Senate passes something, of course we’ll come back,” Johnson said. “We’re running out of (the) clock.”

Johnson said he is “not a fan” of extending the bill to December and would prefer a January deadline. 

He said extending a stopgap funding bill “into January makes sense, but we got to, obviously, build consensus around that.” 

Senators at odds

On Tuesday’s Senate vote, Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, and Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance the legislation. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.

Senate Democrats have refused to support the House-passed GOP measure over concerns about the expiration of health care tax subsidies. As open enrollment begins, people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace are seeing a drastic spike in premium costs. 

Republicans have maintained that any negotiations on health care must occur after Democrats agree to fund the government. 

The Trump administration has also tried to pressure Democrats to accept the House stopgap spending measure by instructing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to not tap into its contingency fund to provide critical food assistance to 42 million Americans. 

SNAP fight

Two federal courts have found the Trump administration acted unlawfully in holding back those benefits, and on Monday USDA announced it would partially release Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. 

However, President Donald Trump Tuesday morning wrote on his social media platform that SNAP benefits would only be released when Democrats vote to reopen the government, a move that would likely violate the two court orders.

“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly ‘handed’ to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!,” he wrote.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Tuesday briefing that the president’s social media post did not refer to the court order, but was referring to future SNAP payments.

“The president doesn’t want to tap into this (contingency) fund in the future and that’s what he was referring to,” she said.

‘Republican health care crisis’ 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York stood firm in his party’s demands over extending health care tax credits in order to back a stopgap spending bill during a Tuesday press conference at the Capitol.

“We want to reopen the government — we want to find a bipartisan path forward toward enacting a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people, that lowers costs for the American people, as opposed to the Trump economy where things are getting more expensive by the day,” Jeffries said. 

“And, of course, we have to decisively address the Republican health care crisis that is crushing the American people all across the land.” 

He noted that Republicans’ refusal to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits would result in “tens of millions of Americans experiencing dramatically increased premiums, co-pays and deductibles.” 

An analysis by KFF shows that those enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace who currently receive a tax credit are likely to see their monthly premium payments more than double by about 114% on average.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the spike in health care premiums will cause some people to choose to forgo health care insurance.

“It’s a five-alarm health care emergency,” Schumer said. 

Johnson’s January CR rationale 

Meanwhile, Johnson said at his press conference that “a lot of people around here have PTSD about Christmas omnibus spending bills,” when speaking out against a December extension of the stopgap spending bill. 

GOP leaders have sought to do away with the practice of bundling at the end of the year the final versions of the dozen annual government funding bills into what’s known as an omnibus package. 

“We don’t want to do that. It gets too close, and we don’t want to have that risk,” Johnson said. “We’re not doing that.” 

However, it’s unclear how long the new stopgap spending bill will extend. Thune, during a Tuesday press conference, said a year-long continuing resolution, or CR, was not on the table. 

“There’s a conversation around what that next deadline would be,” Thune said, adding that there is not an agreement yet.

French wine on display in a District of Columbia shop on March 13, 2025.  The Supreme Court will hear a case on Nov. 5, 2025 challenging President Donald Trump's tariffs and one of the plaintiffs is a wine importer. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear one of the first major cases of President Donald Trump’s second term Wednesday, when the administration defends the president’s emergency tariffs that American small business owners say are upending their livelihoods.

The question at the heart of the case is whether Trump can authorize sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA — the first time a president has used the statute to impose taxes on imports.

The suit, which challenges the bounds of Trump’s presidential power, is the first of the administration’s appeals to the high court to be fully argued on its merits. The justices have so far addressed Trump’s numerous appeals on other issues on what is known as the shadow docket, a fast track to make a decision without full arguments.

The president initially said he would attend the arguments in person but has since changed course and will go to a business forum in Miami Wednesday.

The high court convenes at 10 a.m. Eastern and live audio of the arguments is posted on the court’s website.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he plans to attend the arguments, “hopefully in the front row (to) have a ringside seat,” he told Fox News’ Jesse Watters Monday

The tariff case is “one for the ages,” said Michael McConnell, professor and faculty director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and member of the legal team representing the small businesses challenging Trump’s tariffs.

“The president has important powers that come directly from the Constitution, but he has no power to impose taxes on American citizens without the authorization of Congress, and tariffs are taxes on American importers,” said McConnell, who sat on the bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit from 2002 to 2009.

“IEEPA simply does not apply here,” he told reporters during an Oct. 28 virtual press conference. “It is a statute about imposing various forms of sanctions, economic sanctions, on countries with whom we are in conflict. It has nothing to do with imposing taxes on Americans for engaging in perfectly lawful trade with friendly nations.”

Tariffs a ‘terrible and unsustainable weight’

Victor Schwartz, founder and president of VOS Selections, a family-owned wine and spirits importer in business for four decades, said Trump’s tariff policy is an “existential threat.” 

Schwartz is the lead plaintiff in one of two consolidated cases brought by small business owners and Democratic state attorneys general to challenge the duties that can range from 10% to 50%, depending on the product’s origin.

“These tariffs threaten the very existence of small businesses like mine, making it difficult to survive, let alone grow,” Schwartz told reporters during the Oct. 28 virtual press call.

“Let me be clear, Americans are paying these tariffs, not foreign entities, and the tariffs are a terrible and unsustainable weight. We have to pay tariffs immediately at the port of entry, and we don’t see revenue from those products for at least five or six months,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz said he and his daughter, with whom he runs the business, can no longer import wines from South Africa, as tariffs on products from that country are set at 30%.

Other businesses that joined Schwartz on the lawsuit include a Utah-based plastics producer, a Virginia-based children’s electricity learning kit maker, a Pennsylvania-based fishing gear company and a Vermont-based women’s cycling apparel company.

Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon were among states, led by Democratic state attorneys general, that also sued.

The U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with the plaintiffs in finding Trump’s IEEPA tariffs unconstitutional.

The justices will also hear from two Illinois-based toy companies who, in a separate case, challenged Trump’s emergency tariffs. Learning Resources Inc. and hand2mind manufacture most of their educational toys in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and India. Imports from those countries are taxed anywhere from 15% to above 50%, and in the case of China have been unpredictable.

Trump says ‘country is wealthy again’ 

Trump told reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One that the case is “one of the most important decisions in the history of our country.”

In an interview with the CBS show “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday night, Trump said the economy “will go to hell” if the high court invalidates his emergency tariffs.

“Because of tariffs, our country is wealthy again,” the president told CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell, arguing his use of tariffs as a negotiation tool will yield billions of dollars in investment in the United States from other countries. Many of the framework trade deals Trump has announced, including with the European Union, South Korea and Japan, are not yet finalized.

The government has so far collected $195 billion this year in customs duties at the end of September, according to a U.S. Treasury monthly statement.

In a September filing asking the Supreme Court to expedite the case, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote the U.S. would face “catastrophic” financial consequences, up to $1 trillion, if the emergency tariffs were overturned.

In the same filing, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued the import taxes are Trump’s “most significant economic and foreign-policy initiative … which President Trump has determined are necessary to rectify America’s country-killing trade deficits and to stem the flood of fentanyl across our borders.” 

The administration is facing pushback on those arguments. 

Scott Lincicome, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said a ruling against the tariffs “would not lead to financial ruin, as the administration has said.”

“The government also claims that ‘With tariffs, we are a rich nation. Without tariffs, we are a poor nation,’ — except studies of the fiscal trajectory of the United States with both the IEEPA tariffs, and without, show that we are drowning in debt either way,” Lincicome told reporters at the late October press briefing.

Cato filed a brief in the case arguing against the tariffs.

Some Republicans break ranks

The case has attracted nearly two dozen friend-of-the-court briefs urging the justices to deem Trump’s IEEPA tariffs illegal, including one signed by hundreds of Democrats in Congress and one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. 

The lawmakers argued IEEPA “contains none of the hallmarks of legislation delegating tariff power to the executive, such as limitations tied to specific products or countries, caps on the amount of tariff increases, procedural safeguards, public input, collaboration with Congress, or time limitations.”

In the days leading up to the oral arguments, four Republican senators broke ranks to join Democrats in passing joint resolutions ending Trump’s emergency declarations triggering tariffs. 

One of the bills, passed Oct. 28, targeted Trump’s emergency declaration that led to 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods, including that nation’s major export: coffee. The symbolic bills are not expected to be taken up in the GOP-led House, but mark a shift from when Senate Republicans blocked a similar measure in April.

In its Supreme Court filing, Cato argued the administration’s reading of IEEPA “not only stretches the text beyond recognition but also undermines the Framers’ designs for the separation of powers. Accepting the government’s theory would mean that Congress, through ambiguous text and silence, can transfer sweeping legislative power to the President — a result this Court has cautioned against.”

In an amicus brief supporting Trump’s trade strategy, the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank heavily involved in Trump’s second presidential campaign, defended the tariffs as a “pillar of the America-first policies of the current administration” and argued the president has unilateral power to impose the taxes under a Depression-era law.

Executive orders and more

Trump began imposing tariffs under IEEPA through a series of executive orders and proclamations in February and March on products from China, Canada and Mexico, declaring these countries responsible for illegal fentanyl smuggling into the U.S. 

The president escalated the emergency tariffs over the following months on goods from around the globe, declaring trade imbalances a national emergency. In addition to a baseline 10% global tariff, Trump specifically targeted countries that export more goods to the U.S. than they import from U.S. suppliers.

As recently as late August, Trump imposed an extra 25% tariff on goods imported from India, bringing the total tariffs on Indian products to 50%, because of the country’s usage of Russian oil. 

In early August, Trump slapped a 40% tax on all Brazilian goods after he disagreed with the country’s prosecution of its former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup to remain in power in 2022.

A store displays a sign accepting Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, cards for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program purchases for groceries on Oct. 30, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump backtracked Tuesday on a pledge by his administration in court filings to partially fund November food assistance during the government shutdown, posting on social media that benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!” 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said later Tuesday that Trump was referring to future uses of a food assistance contingency fund and that the administration was complying with the court order, though that description did not match Trump’s post.

Trump’s declaration appeared to have little effect on the federal court case over food aid. The U.S. Department of Agriculture wrote in a court filing late Tuesday it would continue with a plan to provide partial November payments. 

The benefits usually are provided to some 42 million Americans and, at the moment, are shut off pending the partial payments. 

Before Trump’s post Tuesday, a coalition of cities and nonprofits suing the USDA said the delayed partial payments were not enough.

The coalition that filed suit, led by the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, just prior to Trump’s social media post Tuesday asked a Rhode Island federal court to compel the government to pay full benefits. 

The USDA’s promise Monday that it would provide partial payments to households who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, from a roughly $4.5 billion contingency fund, was an insufficient response to a court order, the groups said.

USDA officials said Monday they could not complete partial payments for November benefits by Chief District Court Judge John J. McConnell Jr.’s deadline of Wednesday, and warned it could take several months for beneficiaries to receive the funding because of the administrative difficulties of recalculating and processing partial benefits.

The groups suing said Tuesday that if paying partial benefits created such delays, McConnell should force the government to pay full benefits instead.

“If Defendants cannot comply with the Court’s command to expeditiously resolve the hurdles to making ‘timely’ partial payments, then that is a problem of their own making,” the groups wrote. 

“They chose—unlawfully and contrary to past agency precedent and guidance—to withhold all funding for SNAP,” they continued. “That this unlawful decision may have made it impossible for them to clear the administrative hurdles now is no excuse. They still have a straightforward path to meeting the directives in the Court’s order.”

The department could legally and relatively easily tap into a separate child nutrition program account that holds $23 billion, the groups said. That would more than cover the $9 billion needed for a month of SNAP benefits, they said. 

McConnell ordered the government to respond to the challengers’ motion, and set a hearing on the issue for Thursday afternoon. 

Trump changes course

Within an hour of the groups’ filing, Trump, who had said he was eager to restore SNAP benefits, responded on social media with his defiant message that he would only release any SNAP funding once Democrats in Congress agreed to end the government shutdown that began Oct. 1.

Trump had said Friday he told government lawyers to seek clarification on how the government could legally send out benefits during the shutdown, adding he did not want Americans to go hungry.

“If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding,” he wrote Oct. 31, following an oral order by McConnell.

McConnell issued a written order the next day that benefits be provided either in full by Monday or partially by Wednesday. 

The USDA responded Monday that it would provide partial benefits from the contingency fund that held about half of a month’s worth of benefits, but that the process could take weeks or even months for states to recalibrate the amount each beneficiary would receive and to process those payments.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins echoed that commitment just before the challengers submitted their motion to compel full payments.

“This morning, @USDA sent SNAP guidance to States,” Rollins wrote on X. “My team stands by to offer immediate technical assistance. This will be a cumbersome process, including revised eligibility systems, State notification procedures, and ultimately, delayed benefits for weeks, but we will help States navigate those challenges.”

Spokespeople for the USDA did not return messages seeking an explanation for the course change Tuesday morning.

At the White House press briefing Tuesday afternoon, Leavitt said she had just spoken with Trump and sought to clarify his statement.

“We are digging into a contingency fund,” she said. “The president doesn’t want to tap into this fund in the future and that’s what he was referring to.” 

Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, an advocacy group representing the groups challenging the administration, said in a Tuesday post to social media that Trump’s post was “immoral” and that the group would make use of it.

“See you in court,” Perryman said.

Shutdown lingers

The dispute over SNAP benefits stems from the lapse in government funding that began when Congress failed to appropriate money for federal programs by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

The USDA said in a plan published just ahead of the shutdown — and since deleted — that it would use the contingency fund, which then held $6 billion, to cover SNAP benefits if needed.

But the department reversed itself within weeks, telling states in an Oct. 10 letter that benefits would not be paid in November if the government remained shut down on the first of the month.

Members of each party have blamed the other for the lack of SNAP benefits. 

Democrats have demanded the administration reshuffle funds to cover the program, as it has with other federal funding during the shutdown, while Republicans have called on Democrats to approve a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government at fiscal 2025 spending levels.

Democrats in Congress have blocked Republicans’ “clean” continuing resolution to reopen the government in a bid to force negotiations on expiring tax credits for people who buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

As of Tuesday, the parties showed little sign of softening their positions.

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

A bipartisan bill in the Wisconsin Legislature would launch a pilot project to provide health care and substance abuse recovery services to incarcerated people before and after release.(Photo by Caspar Benson/Getty Images)

“When people don’t receive support, they tend to go back to what they knew,” Tom Denk, who was released from state prison in 2022, told the Wisconsin Examiner.

In an email, Denk said that he has experienced incarceration for a substance use issue and has had many friends who have had similar experiences. 

“One of my best friends was in prison with me,” Denk said. “It was his tenth time in prison — all for substance use issues. However, after he was released, this last time, he died from an overdose.”

Denk said he would like to see wrap-around services extended to include all prisoners. However, he supports a bipartisan effort in the Wisconsin Legislature to request a specific type of waiver of federal Medicaid law for a state demonstration project to provide eligible incarcerated people with up to 90 days of prerelease health care coverage. The coverage would include case management services, medication-assisted treatment for all types of substance use disorders and a 30-day supply of prescription medications to help people continue to overcome addictions after release. There are 19 other states that have approved waivers, while nine, including D.C., are pending. 

In 2023, the Biden administration put out guidance encouraging states to test strategies to support the re-entry of incarcerated people into communities, according to the health policy research organization KFF.

While Medicaid is prohibited from paying for non-inpatient services provided during incarceration, states can apply for a partial waiver of that policy.

A bill in the Wisconsin Legislature, AB 604, would require the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to request the waiver from the federal government. It will receive a hearing Tuesday afternoon in the Assembly Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse Prevention. Its senate counterpart, SB 598, has been referred to the Committee on Health.  

In a press release, Sen. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi) said the bill would offer a way to reduce state and local health care costs for individuals with substance use disorders who are already eligible for Medicaid and are incarcerated in state prisons or county jails. She said it would also enhance access to care after release. 

“If we can initiate treatment for more individuals struggling with substance use disorders while they are incarcerated, we can both improve health outcomes once they are released back into their communities and lower rates of recidivism,” Keyeski said. 

Denk said that upon release, he had to search for a new provider, which “got more and more difficult to do.” He said that “case management would help with this issue — and reduce stressors that cause people to use substances.”

Support from lawmakers of both parties, activists 

Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) and Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) are among the bipartisan group of lawmakers who introduced or cosponsored AB 604.

James is the chair of the Senate Committee on Mental Health, Substance Abuse Prevention, and Children and Families, while Moses is chair of the Assembly Committee on Health, Aging and Long-Term Care. Sen. Howard Marklein, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Finance, is another cosponsor. 

“This bill is about saving lives and giving people coming out of the criminal justice system the best chance of recovery and reintegration into their communities,” James said in an emailed statement. 

The statement cited a North Carolina study of opioid overdose death rates between 2000 and 2015, which concluded that people released from prison are highly vulnerable to opioids and need urgent prevention measures. 

“When treatment begins pre-release and is maintained throughout reentry, we will see meaningful improvement in health outcomes,” James said.

Moses said in a statement that the bill will help give incarcerated individuals a positive start in a transitional phase in their lives, and would also reduce costs for local governments. 

The criminal justice reform advocacy groups EX-Incarcarated People Organizing (EXPO) and WISDOM expressed support for the legislation in statements to the Examiner. 

“For too long, people leaving incarceration have faced dangerous gaps in healthcare coverage — especially those living with substance use disorders,” EXPO stated. 

The legislation “recognizes what we see every day in our work,” according to the organization, “that people returning home are far more likely to succeed when their health and basic needs are supported from the start.”

In an email to the Examiner, Mark Rice of WISDOM said that many formerly and currently incarcerated people are struggling with poverty, mental illness and addiction. He said that “far too many people” detained in prisons and jails are needlessly dying and suffering due to health issues that could be fixed through increased access to care during and after incarceration.

“The system must be fundamentally transformed so that health is prioritized over punishment,” Rice said. 

Under the bill, the Department of Health Services would submit the request for a waiver by Jan. 1, 2027.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

The U.S. Capitol is pictured on March 14, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Senior reporter Jennifer Shutt of the States Newsroom Washington, D.C., Bureau has been named the recipient of the 2025 Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, the National Press Foundation announced.

In a press release, the foundation said a panel of judges recognized Shutt’s reporting on the potential impact of Medicaid cuts on rural hospitals, changes in FEMA that could affect states and funding of tribal radio stations.

Shutt is one of six members of the Washington Bureau of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, with reporting from every state capital as well as the nation’s capital.

“Jennifer Shutt stands out by demonstrating clear, accessible reporting that connects national policy to real people rather than to political insiders,” the judging panel said. “States Newsroom ‘punches above its weight’ among more resourced news organizations by focusing on issues that matter to readers and presenting them in readable, straightforward language.”

The judges said “by avoiding ‘horse race’ political coverage she delivered meaningful, impactful journalism.”

Before joining States Newsroom in 2022, Shutt, a Pennsylvania native and graduate of Penn State University, covered budget and appropriations in Congress for CQ Roll Call and worked as a reporter for the Daily Times in Maryland and as a web producer for Politico.

Shutt will accept the $5,000 award at the National Press Foundation’s Annual Awards Dinner on March 12 in Washington, D.C. The award is named for the late Republican Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois and recognizes reporters “whose work shows thoughtful appraisal and insight into the workings of the U.S. Congress,” the foundation said.

Recent past winners include Benjamin Guggenheim of Politico, a team from the Los Angeles Times and Lisa Desjardins of PBS NewsHour.

This is the second major award for the States Newsroom D.C. bureau this year. Senior reporter Ashley Murray received the 2025 Correspondent Award in the Dateline competition from the D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for “distinguished coverage of the Washington area by a correspondent based in the Washington, D.C., area, whose work is published or broadcast for an audience outside” the nation’s capital. Shutt was among the finalists for that award.

Food stocked on shelves within the Rooted & Rising food center in Milwaukee. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Rooted & Rising, a food center and Hunger Task Force partner, has provided nourishment to people living in Milwaukee’s Washington Park neighborhood for over three decades. The lapse in federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, known in Wisconsin as FoodShare, that began on Saturday is increasing desperation, according to staff. Over the last week, Bill Schmitt, executive director of Rooted & Rising, told the Wisconsin Examiner, “197 households came through the food center…And that’s about a 60% increase over what we would usually see.” 

On Friday, Gov. Tony Evers declared a state of emergency in Wisconsin due to the lapse in federal SNAP funding. 

By Monday afternoon people from more than 50 local households had already arrived at Rooted & Rising to pick up canned goods and  locally grown produce. Schmitt said the numbers on Monday showed a sustained spike. 

Rooted & Rising provides food once a month, or every 30 days, from noon to 4 p.m., in a neighborhood where, according to the food center’s website, the unemployment rate exceeds 15% and 50% of households live below the poverty line. 

“We know a lot of people came out last week,” Schmitt said, referring to the over 60% spike the pantry saw just before  SNAP benefits were cut off. “We’re just trying to keep pace with the demand and make sure that people still have a dignified, respectful experience here and they’re not having to wait too long.” 

Rooted & Rising’s shelves are stocked with assorted canned goods, boxes hold ripe fruits and vegetables and freezers preserve perishables including meat. People sit in chairs while staff buzz past carrying boxes and help load bags into cars. First-time visitors must present an I.D. and a current piece of mail.

On Monday, elderly people and parents with small children visited the food center, gathering  enough food in their carts to last three days or so. “It’s families just like yours and mine really,” said Schmitt. “It is primarily working families. And people are fitting in visits to the food center with their work schedule when they can, or someone’s coming on their behalf. And we know across the state, it’s 700,000 individuals that rely upon these benefits. And the majority of those families…They’re trying to make ends meet.” 

While there was a rise in the number of families visiting the food center at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rooted & Rising has seen a more recent uptick over the last year. In addition to the regulars, many people are either new families or people who hadn’t visited the food center in quite some time. “Our assessment of it is like wages just aren’t keeping pace with inflation,” said Schmitt. “There’s obviously been a sustained period of inflationary pressure in the economy more broadly, and subsequently we’ve seen, I mean, even before this government shutdown, our numbers were considerably higher than the year previous.”

Prior to last year, Rooted & Rising would see between 250-350 households a month. In October,  517 households came to the food center for assistance. 

“It is both the actual impact of the delayed food share benefits going out, but really it’s also like the uncertainty of it that we all know in our own lives,” Schmitt said. 

Leah Boonnam, 33, comes from one of those new families. Monday was the third time she’d come to Rooted & Rising.  She started coming to the food center back in the summer. “It’s a long story,” she said after loading groceries into her car. “I’m a widow. My husband passed a few years ago. So we don’t get FoodShare, I don’t get anything like that. We live off the survivors benefits. And so we’ve had to move a lot, like downsize.” 

A friend told Boonnam to check out the food center, which has been a big help to her family. While she works various jobs, Boonnam’s husband was her family’s main provider. “My plan is to finish paying off my debt to school so I can return and finish my degree, my masters,” she told the Wisconsin Examiner. “However, when I started my program, my husband had passed. It was right at the start of COVID and everything. So, he was the one that was the major breadwinner for our family.” Boonnam said she works hard, but “nothing compares to having two incomes in a household.” 

“I wish people didn’t feel so bad about having to come here,” she added. “This is a really beautiful thing that is available to us. I mean, this is such a help.”

”A lot of the fresh organic stuff that they get here is from the food pantries, and these are local businesses that are helping to support local people,” Boonnam said.

Another visitor, a friendly 48-year-old man who only wanted to be identified by his first name, Isaac, said he’d been coming to Rooted & Rising for about six years. “It’s very important because things are getting hectic and people don’t have no other options,” he said of SNAP.  If food assistance programs were to halt completely, Isaac said he worries  “crime might raise, or a lot of chaos.” He hopes that after the current federal shutdown is over, states will “plan ahead and think ahead,” grow food bank networks and provide “things that can assist folks who are in crisis. … We’ll make it, just a little more tender love and care.”

Bonny Walters, an older woman who has helped out at Rooted & Rising for more than 30 years, has seen the numbers of people needing the food center “increase a lot,” she said.  She hopes that even if people don’t help out at a food center, they understand that the need is real. 

With the future of SNAP still up in the air and the government shutdown continuing, Schmitt said the generosity of neighbors is more important than ever. Across Milwaukee County, food drives are being held to help provide a cushion for local residents who rely on FoodShare to survive. So far, over $74,000 has been raised — enough to provide over 222,000 meals. The Brewers Community Foundation made a $10,000 donation. Local elected leaders have criticized  the Trump administration for using hunger and food security as a political bargaining chip in Washington D.C. 

Schmitt explained that Rooted & Rising, as part of Milwaukee County’s emergency food network, is designed to meet the emergency nutritional needs of families on a monthly basis. “We do not have the capacity, or the resources, or even the physical space or stocks to fill the gap of the loss of FoodShare,” he said. 

“There’s a really visceral situation when you’re talking about people in your communities not having enough to eat and like, skipping meals, or you know, going hungry sometimes, too,” he added. “It’s crazy to think about that — in the wealthiest country in human history that this is an issue that we’re confronting right now. But, people have really been stepping up and we’re going to continue to rely upon that generosity of our community members and partners to kind of recognize that this is a unique moment, and one that requires all of us to work together and kind of meet the moment, meet the need of our fellow community members.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Workers, including one man in a wheelchair, discuss a project they are working on in Houston, Texas. (Getty Images)

A state program to help people with disabilities find employment is running short of funds, the state labor department reported Monday, leading to a waiting list for people seeking the agency’s services.

The Department of Workforce Development will seek $4.6 million from the state Legislature to fully fund the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation in the 2026 fiscal year.

The division serves about 19,000 people at any one time and enrolls about 1,000 new participants each month who have disabilities and are looking for work opportunities, said Haley McCoy, director of communications at DWD.

The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is about twice that for the general population, said Melanie Cairns, managing attorney for Disability Rights Wisconsin.

“The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation provides vital support and services that people with disabilities need in order to work and to find better work,” Cairns said.

Those services include assessment of a person’s current job skills and discussions about the individual’s work goal and what services and supports they need to pursue that goal, Cairns said. Those can include grants for training in a specific occupation or skills, job coaching and other forms of support.

Federal funds cover 78.7% of the program’s cost, with the state required to pitch in 21.3% to match that. The additional state appropriation DWD is seeking would unlock the corresponding additional federal money.

The 2025-27 state budget appropriated $21.3 million in state funds for the 2026 fiscal year — $2.4 million less than the state spent in 2025 and $4.6 million less than what the state had projected it would need, according to DWD.

Unless the shortfall is made up, the agency will have to put potential new participants on a waiting list, according to DWD. McCoy said about 2,000 people are currently awaiting an employment plan through the division and would be put on the waiting list as a consequence.

DWD has scheduled a virtual public hearing for Thursday, Nov. 13, at 2 p.m., to explain the need for the waiting list and seek comment from the public about that prospect.

“We want to find a solution to continue to provide employment services for anyone with disabilities who wants to find a job,” said DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek in a statement Monday. “We welcome the public to participate in this public hearing and are working with all stakeholders to address this issue.”

 

Migrants from Mexico and Guatemala are apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers after crossing a section of border wall into the U.S. on Jan. 4, 2025 in Ruby, Arizona. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A panel of District of Columbia Court of Appeals judges Monday heard oral arguments from the Trump administration defending the president’s move to end asylum claims at the southern border through an executive order.

Civil rights and immigration advocacy groups sought to make permanent a District of Columbia District Court’s July injunction that found the Trump administration could not block asylum seekers from making asylum claims — a form of protection extended to those fearing persecution. 

A separate appeals panel lifted the lower court’s order, permitting the administration to block asylum seekers while the merits of the case were argued.

The Trump administration cited the 212(f) proclamation and claimed that because there is an “invasion” at the southern border, asylum protections – which were created by Congress – could be denied. The 212(f) proclamation gives the president the authority to suspend entry of migrants under certain circumstances.

Encounters with migrants at the southern border have remained the lowest in years. 

Immigration crackdown

The executive order from January fell in line with the president’s immigration crackdown, as he aims to limit immigration in the interior of the country with mass deportations and cease migration to the United States through curbing access to asylum and refugee resettlement. 

During Monday’s oral arguments, Department of Justice attorneys on behalf of the Trump administration argued that Trump has the authority to decide who is admissible into the country, regardless if it’s an asylum claim.

The suit was brought on behalf of three organizations by the American Civil Liberties Union, National Immigrant Justice Center, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Texas Civil Rights Project, ACLU of the District of Columbia and ACLU of Texas. 

Those three organizations are the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project. They provide legal services to people seeking asylum and argued that they are unable to do so under Trump’s proclamation.

The judges on the panel included Cornelia T.L. Pillard, Justin R. Walker and J. Michelle Childs.

Former President Barack Obama nominated Pillard and former President Joe Biden nominated Childs. President Donald Trump nominated Walker during his first term. 

Trump executive powers

Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, DOJ attorney Drew Ensign said the president’s proclamation was an extension of his executive branch powers.

Ensign argued that the Trump administration views asylum as discretionary, and that the president can “take the steps necessary to make an entry bar effective, including defining consequences for violating it.” 

Ensign argued that because the appeals court this summer allowed for the district court’s order to be paused, it means the government is likely to prevail on its argument.   

Lee Gelernt of the ACLU argued that the proclamation’s use of 212(f) cannot override asylum law in the Immigration Nationality Act that Congress passed.

“This is an internally coherent statute which Congress has put together the pieces,” Gelernt said of the INA. “And what’s ultimately happening here is that the administration doesn’t like the way Congress has put together the pieces.”

He added that Congress was specific in describing a migrant who would not be allowed to qualify for asylum, such as someone who has ties to terrorism. 

“But 212(f) itself cannot override asylum,” Gelernt said. 

Ensign also asked the panel of judges, if they decide to allow the lower court’s injunction to go into effect, to give the Trump administration at least two weeks to implement the new policy at the southern border.

The Trump Administration yanked more than $65 million in Title X funding from clinics nationwide in April, and some of that funding is still frozen, leaving clinics struggling to offer free or low-cost contraception and other family planning services. Some states are suing to get the funding back, but Idaho officials chose to forego it due to a conflict with state law. (Getty Images)

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare quietly declined the entirety of its annual $1.5 million federal Title X funding, leaving patients statewide without free and low-cost contraception and reproductive health care services from a key family planning program. 

Though thousands of Idahoans relied on the health care provided through Title X for over 50 years, the state made no public announcements as the decision took effect in April, leading to the closure of 28 out of 43 — about 65% — Title X-funded family planning clinics in public health districts throughout the state, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. 

After turning down the Title X money entirely, Health and Welfare said there are no plans for the state to make up the difference by increasing the family planning budget. 

In one district, Eastern Idaho Public Health, spokesperson Brenna Christofferson said contraception services are no longer available at all, which has only been communicated to existing Title X patients. Sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, and breast and cervical cancer screenings are still provided using different funding sources.

Many of the clinics closed in eastern Idaho, including more populated cities such as Twin Falls and Idaho Falls, and more rural areas such as Salmon, Rexburg and Rigby. Title X services also ended at clinics like Terry Reilly Health Services in one of southwestern Idaho’s most populous areas of Nampa and Caldwell. 

The decision to forego the funds came at the same time the Trump administration yanked more than $65 million in Title X funding from Planned Parenthood clinics and some independent reproductive health clinics across the country, much of which is still frozen, including for Idaho’s last remaining Planned Parenthood in Meridian. Spokesperson Nicole Erwin said Planned Parenthood continues to fundraise to help offset costs and keep family planning services affordable on a sliding scale.

Although Idaho’s move came at the same time national attention was focused on the frozen funds, it was a separate decision, according to Health and Welfare.

“The discontinuation of Title X funding … was not related to the federal administration’s Title X policy changes earlier this year,” said AJ McWhorter, spokesperson for the Health and Welfare Department. “The department made the decision to decline the funding to remain compliant with current Idaho laws concerning parental rights and counseling on pregnancy options.”

Nationally, seven out of 16 grantees have had their funding restored, while others have been waiting nearly seven months for resolution, said Clare Coleman, president and CEO of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association.

“For Idaho to walk away from the money doesn’t just disadvantage and imperil young people, it imperils all the people in the state,” she said. “It hurts women, it hurts men, and it hurts young people.”

Coleman’s organization sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over the frozen funds, and the case is still pending. A coalition of 20 Democratic-led states sued federal government agencies in July to halt its actions related to several social safety net programs, including Title X. That case is paused while the government is shut down.

In 2023, U.S. Health and Human Services reported Title X provided care to nearly 3 million people nationwide, a 7% increase from the prior year. Under the program guidelines, people with family income levels at or below 100% of the federal poverty level can receive services free of charge, while those making up to 250% of the federal poverty level pay a discounted rate on a sliding scale.  

The program, established by Congress and signed by former Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970, is intended to prioritize low-income or uninsured people, including those who make too much to qualify for Medicaid, who may not otherwise have access to family planning and reproductive health services. Abortion services cannot be covered by Title X dollars.

Pregnancy options and parental consent 

The federal statute guiding the administration of Title X funds includes a section on adolescent services that says grantees cannot require the consent of parents or guardians before or after the minor has requested or received family planning services. Another section directs grantees to allow pregnant patients the opportunity to receive information and counseling regarding prenatal care and delivery, infant care, foster care, adoption and pregnancy termination. Idaho has a near-total abortion ban with few exceptions.

Idaho’s Legislature passed Senate Bill 1329 in 2024, requiring parental consent for “the furnishing of health care services” to a child, with the exception of lifesaving care. Idaho Capital Sun reported the law has also created difficulties for the state’s suicide hotline, because some minors need permission from a parent to receive certain services.

Coleman said the adolescent and pregnancy options requirements have long been part of Title X guidance, and it has not conflicted with state law because federal law should take precedence under the U.S. Constitution.

Idaho is one of at least two states that currently has no Title X funding, Coleman said, after Utah lost all of its Title X money when the Trump administration withheld funding from Planned Parenthood clinics, which were the only places offering those low-cost or free services. Planned Parenthood of Utah closed two of its centers — in Logan and St. George — in the wake of the decision to freeze funding. Logan is less than an hour away from eastern Idaho’s border.

Some states were temporarily left without Title X providers after the Trump administration’s actions in April, but the funding was restored at later dates for certain states, including Missouri and Mississippi. The federal health agency also restored funds in May for two states with abortion bans, Tennessee and Oklahoma, whose grants were revoked under Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration because of their refusal to include abortion among the options during pregnancy counseling. 

In a letter from HHS to Tennessee state officials providing notice of the award, the acting chief grants management officer wrote, “Tennessee is one of only two states to have lost funding for failure to comply with the Title X 2021 regulations requiring counseling and referral for abortion. The department is declining to enforce this provision against the state, and you may rely on this letter to that effect.” 

A total of 7,528 Title X clients were served across Idaho in 2024, McWhorter said. The 15 remaining family planning clinics are supported by other funds, and additional service sites may be added as funding becomes available. Those clinics are in two out of the state’s seven public health districts, which served about 1,400 people combined in 2024. 

The closures add another challenge in an already difficult landscape for sexual and reproductive health care in Idaho. A recent study found that 94 of 268 practicing OB-GYNs left Idaho between August 2022 and December 2024, and care is becoming harder to obtain, according to residents, who say wait times are longer and certain treatment is unavailable locally. 

Coleman said under Biden’s administration, when an entity lost Title X dollars for noncompliance or other reasons, there was an effort to reallocate the funding to another willing participant. Without that action, it would revert back to the U.S. Treasury, and the next opportunity for another Idaho entity to apply for Title X funding will be late 2026. 

Preventing unplanned pregnancies 

Amy Klingler, a clinician in rural eastern Idaho, told States Newsroom she was devastated by the closure of Eastern Idaho Public Health’s family planning clinic. She worked there in addition to another clinical job since 2006 and said there aren’t many other options for family planning care in that area of the state.

“Idahoans don’t trust doctors, but they trust their doctor,” Klingler said. “So when we see rural health care being eroded and doctors leaving Idaho or not coming to Idaho, I think that is really going to impact the health of people in our communities.”

The additional cuts to Planned Parenthood through Medicaid, along with overall Medicaid cuts that may force the closure of more rural hospitals and clinics, will force people to delay care until they are sicker and require more expensive medical care, Klingler said.

The minor consent for treatment bill had good intentions, she said, and in an ideal world, every child would feel comfortable talking to their family members about birth control. But she said she is confident there are young women who don’t get birth control because they don’t want to have that conversation with their parents. 

And with Idaho’s abortion ban, unplanned pregnancies either have to be carried to term or the person must go to another state where abortion is legal. It’s also a felony in Idaho for someone to take a minor to another state for an abortion without parental permission.

“Providing free birth control is really powerful if you’re trying to prevent unplanned pregnancies,” Klingler said.

On her last day at the family planning clinic in June, Klingler said the staffers cried together.

“We often ended the day by saying, ‘We did some really good work today,’” she said. “And to not be able to do that good work kind of hurts the heart.”

Sarah Donald of Pearl, Miss., left, who has been in recovery for nine years, receives naloxone nasal spray from an organizer at the state’s Save a Life Day in September. Overdose awareness is continuing to save lives, but overdoses and deaths have spiked in some areas this year. (Photo by Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today)

Illicit drug overdoses and the deaths they cause are trending down this year, despite spikes in a handful of states, according to a Stateline analysis of data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A handful of places with rising overdoses are responding to the problem with cooperation, they say, by sharing information about overdose surges and distributing emergency medication.

“The national conversation is just about warships in the Caribbean and drones and borders,” said Nabarun Dasgupta, who studies overdose trends at the University of North Carolina. “It discounts this huge groundswell of Americans taking care of Americans. There’s a huge amount of caregiving and tending to the needs of local communities that is being done in a non-flashy way because this is hard, slow work.”

Overdose deaths have been dropping steadily since 2023. As of April, the latest date available, deaths were at 76,500 for the previous 12 months — their lowest level since March 2020. A pandemic spike in overdose deaths drove the number as high as almost 113,000 in the summer of 2023, according to federal statistics.

President Donald Trump has ordered more than a dozen military strikes against boats in the open waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean since Sept. 2, claiming without publicized evidence that their occupants were drug runners bringing narcotics to the United States. Nearly 60 people have been killed.

The bulk of deadly fentanyl is smuggled over the border with Mexico in passenger cars, according to a September report by the federal Government Accountability Office. Chemicals and equipment, mostly from China, are smuggled in via cargo trucks, commercial ships, airplanes and the mail, according to the report.

A more timely indicator of overdoses — nonfatal suspected overdose patients in hospital emergency departments — was down 7% this year through August compared with 2024, according to Stateline’s analysis of CDC statistics.

The nonfatal overdoses were up for the year in only a few states and the District of Columbia. The largest spikes were 17% in the district, 16% in Rhode Island, 15% in Delaware, 11% in Connecticut and 10% in New Mexico, with smaller increases in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, South Dakota, Utah, New Jersey and Minnesota.

Other states saw drops in nonfatal overdoses: Maryland had the largest decrease through August, about 17%.

But Baltimore had an attention-grabbing cluster of 42 overdoses between July and October, all within the same neighborhood. No fatalities were reported. The cluster led the city to set aside $2 million in October for more mobile services, harm reduction and social supports to fight overdoses.

New Mexico is seeing more overdoses and more deaths than the previous year in three counties on the Colorado border. In response, New Mexico is distributing both warnings and naloxone, an opioid-overdose antidote.

Officials are giving naloxone to storekeepers near overdose sites and alerting those seeking services about the deadly threat in the local supply.

“We started planning naloxone saturation and different types of outreaches so we can hopefully stem this from getting even worse,” said David Daniels, harm reduction section manager in the New Mexico health department.

“Putting messaging directly into clients’ hands is extremely valuable. That might be, ‘If you’re choosing to use, don’t use the regular amount. Maybe you should use a quarter of it. Test it out first,’” Daniels said.

The three counties in New Mexico — which include the capital city Santa Fe, ski resort Taos and Española, the setting of the 2023 TV black comedy series “The Curse” — saw about 438 more deaths from July through September than they did during the third quarter of 2024, according to Stateline calculations. That’s more than double the 383 overdose deaths for the area during the same time period last year.

Roger Montoya, a former Democratic state representative who runs an arts nonprofit in Rio Arriba County, said most of the deaths there have been among homeless substance users.

A local hospital has responded with programs to get treatment for more people, and his own Moving Arts Española group concentrates on helping children and young people break a cycle of economic despair that often leads to addiction and homelessness, he said.

“We try to redirect and strengthen the resiliency of young people who largely are being raised by grandparents and kin because mom and dad are either dead, on the street or incarcerated,” Montoya said.

But most states with overdose increases are still showing fewer deaths, mostly because the drug supply in the eastern United States is more likely to be cut with sedatives that don’t have the same deadly effect as fentanyl, though they can cause overdose.

The drugs linked to Baltimore’s mass overdoses were cut with an unusual, powerful sedative, according to federal testing. The sedative can cause people to lose consciousness but can’t itself be treated with reversal medication such as naloxone.

By contrast New Mexico’s tests on this year’s clusters generally found more deadly fentanyl than usual in the local supply, said Phillip Fiuty, a technical adviser on adulterant testing in the state health department.

“We’re not seeing the type of adulteration they’re experiencing on the East Coast. Once something is in New Mexico, there’s little to no adulteration,” Fiuty said.

Some East Coast states are seeing more overdoses but fewer deaths. Rhode Island warned of spikes in nonfatal overdose in August and September, but deaths through September were still lower than during the same period last year, according to state figures.

That’s not always the case. Connecticut reported a surge of both fatal and nonfatal overdoses near interstate highways in May and June.

“One of the factors is change in the illicit drug supply or bad batches. I think that’s what’s playing out now. The drug supply is increasingly unpredictable,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

The association has a suggested framework for community response to spikes, but cities and counties may be hampered by a new aggressiveness on enforcement and more hostility to local efforts to stop deaths, she said.

The current Trump administration has shown some reluctance to support community harm reduction techniques, she said. That includes the temporary suspension of $140 million in funds for a program called Overdose Data to Action, known as OD2A, that the first Trump administration started to sound the alarm when spikes happen.

“Given recent cuts to health care and substance use and overdose prevention services that we’re seeing, that is impacting some of the work on the ground,” Freeman said. “It’s pushing people away from being able to make the changes they need to make to change their lives. It has the potential to create more of an overdose problem.”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Federal funding for SNAP ran out on Nov. 1, and the cuts are affecting about 700,000 Wisconsinites who rely on SNAP. A “SNAP welcomed here” sign is seen at the entrance to a Big Lots store in Portland, Oregon. (Getty Images)

Gov. Tony Evers has declared a state of emergency in Wisconsin due to federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as FoodShare in Wisconsin, being cut off over the weekend.

“Wisconsinites and Americans across the country are now scrambling, trying to figure out how to feed their families,” Evers said in a statement. “There’s no excuse for it, and this is a direct result of Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration, who’ve done nothing to help. As the courts agree, the Trump Administration could’ve stopped this from happening, but they didn’t, and now, Wisconsin’s kids, families, and seniors are worried about whether or when they’re going to eat next. This shouldn’t be happening.” 

Evers issued the declaration on Friday evening and ordered state agencies to take actions within their powers to provide support to Wisconsinites. 

Federal funding for SNAP ran out on Nov. 1, and the cuts are affecting about 700,000 Wisconsinites who rely on SNAP.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a $5 billion contingency fund for SNAP, but the Trump administration had claimed it couldn’t use it to fund regular benefits during the shutdown.

Two judges ruled on Friday that the Trump administration should use the contingency funds. It has until Wednesday to do so. The Trump administration said Monday it would partially fund SNAP following the rulings, though it is unclear how quickly SNAP beneficiaries will receive funds and how much they will receive. 

Until then, Evers said the executive order would help ensure Wisconsin agencies can do what they can within their power to support Wisconsinites. 

The order directs state agencies to take any and all necessary measures to address the emergency by prohibiting price gouging due to loss of FoodShare funding and economic disruptions and ensuring resources are available for Wisconsinites, including information about emergency aid and consumer protection. 

“The federal government shutdown has gone on long enough — it has to end,” Evers said. “Republicans must start working across the aisle to end the federal government shutdown and extend tax credits that will lower the cost of healthcare so Wisconsinites and Americans across our country have economic stability and certainty, and the Trump Administration must take action and do so quickly to fix the damage they’ve caused and ensure folks can get basic food and groceries they need to survive without any further delay.”

Evers is limited in the steps that he can take unilaterally to fill gaps and address the loss of funds. Some states, including Connecticut, Louisiana, Virginia and Vermont, have taken steps to partially fund SNAP using state and local dollars while federal funds are unavailable. For Wisconsin to take similar steps, however, it would require cooperation from the Republican-led Legislature and Evers.

A bill would need to pass both houses of the Legislature to appropriate funds and be signed by Evers. 

Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said in an interview with WISN-12 on Oct. 26 that it was unlikely that state lawmakers would take action to backfill SNAP. 

“My heart goes out to people, but this is a federal issue, and I don’t see the state having the resources to do that,” Felzkowski said. “I just wish that the Democrats would sign this continuing resolution and vote for it, and let’s move on. They shouldn’t be playing games like this. You don’t hold people hostage over these kinds of issues, so no, I don’t see us stepping in.” 

The government shutdown is entering Day 34 with no end in sight, 

During a virtual press conference on Monday, a group of Wisconsin legislative Democrats criticized Republicans for letting SNAP funding lapse and for not taking more actions during the state budget to ensure that state programs support food assistance and farmers, saying they’ve fallen short when it comes to providing necessary aid for Wisconsinites. 

“The federal government is using hunger to negotiate, and I think that’s immoral,” Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) said. 

Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon) noted that the federal funds the Trump administration has agreed to release will not fully fund SNAP. 

“The funds being released — it’s only a partial payment, so there will still be families and kids that go hungry and yet Wisconsin’s portion of FoodShare is about one-third of the White House ballroom,” Jacobson said, referencing the renovations that Trump has undertaken in recent weeks to demolish the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom. “We could get it funded.” 

Pfaff highlighted a number of measures that Democratic lawmakers have proposed this year, including free school meals for students, funding for a food security grant program, which would assist food banks and funding for a farm to fork grant program, which would provide state funding to help connect local entities with cafeterias to nearby farms to provide locally produced foods. 

“Every single one of these measures were either completely eliminated, or as in the case of the Farm to Fork program, severely cut by the Republican-controlled Legislature, which struck $20 million out of our Food Security Grant program, which would be very helpful right now,” Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) said. 

Asked whether the state Legislature or Evers should play more of a role as the shutdown continues and SNAP isn’t funded, however, Pfaff said the lawmakers were “not here today to talk about that.”

“What we are here today is to talk about what the [state] Legislature has within its jurisdiction right now, there’s bills that are ready to go,” Pfaff said.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Chief Inspector Megan Williamson processes absentee ballots at the Hawthorne Library on Madison's East Side. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a right-wing law firm, complained in a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice last week that the Wisconsin Elections Commission is improperly allowing erroneous data entries to remain in the state voter registration database. 

The Elections Commission says WILL is overstating its claims, misunderstanding how the voter database is used and wrong about the requirements of federal law. Meanwhile election administration experts say that WILL is stoking the fears of Wisconsin election conspiracy theorists, which is dangerous because of the Trump administration’s history of election meddling, increasing willingness to prosecute perceived enemies and growing warnings that it will interfere in next year’s midterms. 

In its letter to the DOJ, WILL complains that the state voter database includes “thousands of active, registered voters in Wisconsin whose voter registration information does not match the information in their DOT records. And WEC appears to be doing nothing about it.” The letter states that this problem has only worsened in recent years. 

State law requires that whenever someone registers to vote, either online or in person with their local municipal clerk, the information they provide is double checked against data kept by the state Department of Transportation — the person’s name, date of birth, address, driver’s license number or Social Security number. 

When someone registers online, this double check happens automatically. When someone registers on paper, the data is entered manually by the clerk and checked against the DOT information. 

The problem is that human error can creep into data entries, so there are entries in which someone with the full name “Robert” registers to vote under “Bob,” or the characters in a 14-digit driver’s license number are transposed or the clerk makes a typo. 

When these mistakes are made, clerks can rectify them on their own, or reache back out to the voter to clarify. The double-checking process is required under a federal law, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). 

“Approximately 5% of the people who registered to vote between January 1 and November 3, 2020, were at least initially non-matches with either DMV or Social Security databases,” a FAQ page on the elections commission website states. “That does not mean these voters are not real Wisconsin citizens. When there is a non-match, a registered voter is never ‘removed’ from the statewide voter database. Neither Wisconsin nor federal law require a match, and Wisconsin law does not permit clerks or the WEC to remove a voter from the list for not matching.”

WEC notes that the HAVA check requirements on the state were litigated in 2008 and that the law does not require Wisconsin’s election authorities to declare people as ineligible voters. But WILL states the agency has been ignoring the problem.

“Critically, WEC has not taken sufficient steps to remedy this situation. In fact, the issue has gotten worse,” the letter states. “WILL understands that this data does not indicate the cause of the discrepancy. And while some of these errors might be minor, the large and growing number of mismatches in the system underscores the need for a comprehensive audit of Wisconsin’s voter registration list, which WEC refuses to perform in violation of its obligations under HAVA. Accordingly, we respectfully request that the U.S. Department of Justice takes this information into account as it investigates this issue and takes all necessary steps to remedy this significant problem.”

Emilee Miklas, a spokesperson for WEC, disputes the WILL analysis. 

“The primary objective of the HAVA check process is to identify errors and rectify discrepancies,” she said in an email. “The presence of non-matches discovered in a previous analysis does not necessarily indicate a persistence of errors in the system a year later.”

In a statement, WILL Deputy Counsel Lucas Vebber said the commission FAQ is “not a sufficient explanation” for the data errors. 

“Given the thousands of mismatches that are in the current voter registration list, it appears that whatever WEC does, if anything, is woefully insufficient,” Vebber said. “But to determine if WEC is complying with HAVA it is necessary for WEC to describe the complete process in its response.”

Jeff Mandell, general counsel at the progressive voting rights focused firm Law Forward, says the letter is the latest example of WILL repeatedly casting doubt on the voter rolls. He pointed to a 2018 lawsuit in which WILL sued to force WEC to kick thousands of people off the voter registration list. WILL ultimately lost that lawsuit at the state Supreme Court, which was controlled by a conservative majority at the time. 

“This is just more fearmongering. WILL has been trying to purge the voter rolls for years,” Mandell says, adding that it’s part of the Republican party’s recent efforts to stir up unfounded concern about non-citizens casting ballots. “They have been upset about the voter rolls and insisting without evidence the voter rolls are wrong. Now they’re jumping onto the latest piece of this and skepticism about proof of citizenship. There is still no evidence, no one has been able to show any incidence of non-citizen voting. If the rolls were as error-filled as WILL’s latest suggestions insist, that wouldn’t be true.”

After the rise of election conspiracy theories in the wake of the 2020 election, WILL  distanced itself from the most fevered Republican theories. The firm released a report on the 2020 presidential election, affirming that it was won by Joe Biden while pointing to a number of adjustments and rule changes that could be made to improve Wisconsin’s  election administration. 

“WILL seems to want it both ways, claiming to not be conspiracy mongers and that they can prove that by saying Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and yet still play footsie with conspiracy mongers,” Mandell says. “They do that by filing nonsense lawsuits over and over and over … and this is another example.” 

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, says that the only effect of going to DOJ with these complaints is raising the likelihood that the results of the 2026 midterms will be questioned — by Trump or his supporters. 

“All they’re doing is providing a little ammo to the Trumpers and the people that are going to question the outcome of the 2026 election,” Heck says. “And so they’re just planting more seeds of doubt in people’s minds, at least the people that would be doubting it anyway.”

Heck also points out that an easy solution to WILL’s complaint would be the establishment of automatic voter registration in Wisconsin, which would automatically register someone to vote when they obtain a driver’s license or state ID from the DOT and cut out WEC’s role as the middleman. But, he says, WILL and Republicans do not support that. 

Despite the DOJ’s potential threat to interfere in election administration, Vebber said in his statement the firm went to the DOJ because it is the agency responsible for enforcing HAVA.

“The U.S. Department of Justice has the express authority to enforce each state’s compliance with HAVA,” Vebber said. “WILL is concerned that WEC is violating HAVA. As a result, the correct agency to complain to is USDOJ. As stated above, in our letter to the U.S Department of Justice we suggested [eight] specific follow-up questions on this issue. WEC does not need to wait for the USDOJ to answer these questions. In the interests of transparency, we would ask WEC to voluntarily answer them.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

A sign in a convenience store along Barlowe Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, advertises that it accepts SNAP benefits. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay about half of November benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, though benefits could take months to flow to recipients, the department said Monday in a brief to a federal court in Rhode Island.

A four-page report from the USDA answered U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr.’s order that President Donald Trump’s administration pay at least a portion of benefits to the 42 million people who receive assistance through the program by the end of Wednesday, despite the government shutdown.

The USDA action does not address what would happen if the shutdown stretches beyond November.

Leading Democrats in Congress blasted the administration’s decision to pay only part of the month’s benefits, saying Trump was willfully denying food assistance to needy Americans.  “Providing partial benefits is not enough, is not compliant with the law, and it’s particularly cruel of Trump with the Thanksgiving season around the corner,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. 

McConnell on Saturday laid out two options for the administration: pay for partial benefits by the end of Wednesday through a contingency fund which currently has about $4.65 billion available, or pay for a full month of benefits by tapping other reserve sources such as the child nutrition program by the end of Monday. 

USDA opted to use the contingency fund, giving the department until the end of Wednesday to pay out benefits. 

But a declaration from Patrick A. Penn, USDA’s deputy under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, said the administrative hurdles in calculating and delivering a half-month’s portion of benefits could take “anywhere from a few weeks to up to several months.”

The department was complying with McConnell’s order by starting the process of resuming payments Monday, according to the status report signed by U.S. Justice Department officials.

USDA “will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds today by generating the table required for States to calculate the benefits available for each eligible household in that State,” they said. “USDA will therefore have made the necessary funds available and have authorized the States to begin disbursements once the table is issued.”

Delayed SNAP benefits in shutdown

McConnell’s order acknowledged that calculating reduced benefits would take the government some time, which he explained was why he gave USDA until Wednesday if the department chose that path.

But Penn said Monday that was not nearly enough time, in part due to some states’ outdated systems for processing benefits.

The federal government would provide states with updated tables for benefits at the partial funding level by Monday, he said. States will then need to send updated files to the vendors that process benefits and add them to beneficiaries’ debit-like EBT cards to be spent on groceries.

Monday marked the 34th day of the federal government shutdown, which began Oct. 1 when Congress failed to appropriate money for federal programs or pass a stopgap spending bill. 

The U.S. Senate was expected to hold another procedural vote to move forward the House-passed GOP stopgap bill that would fund the government at fiscal 2025 levels until Nov. 21. 

Democrats have voted against that measure in a bid to force negotiations on expiring tax credits for people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

On Tuesday, the funding lapse will tie for the longest shutdown in history, which took place between 2018 and 2019. 

Contingency fund dispute

Leading up to the end of October, the administration had warned it could not pay SNAP benefits for this month amid the shutdown, saying it was legally forbidden from using the contingency fund that was supposed to be for natural disasters and similar emergencies.

But two federal judges ruled Oct. 31 that USDA not only could use the fund, but was obligated to in order to keep SNAP benefits flowing.

Saturday marked the first lapse in benefit payments in the modern history of the program that dates to part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty agenda.

Lawmakers, advocates and SNAP experts said users of the program would see a delay in November benefits as the administration worked to restart it.

The administration’s insistence it could not use its contingency fund, originally appropriated by Congress at $6 billion, was a reversal from a Sept. 30 USDA plan on how to operate in a shutdown, which explicitly called for use of the fund to keep issuing benefits.

A month of SNAP benefits costs the federal government about $9 billion.

While USDA would not use the contingency fund to pay for regular benefits, it did spend about $750 million of the original $6 billion for other uses in October, according to a Monday declaration to the court by Penn.

The department spent about $450 million for state administrative expenses and $300 million for block grants to Puerto Rico and American Samoa, Penn wrote.

The department would again allocate $450 million for administrative expenses in November, and $150 million for the block grants to territories, he added.

That left $4.65 billion available for November benefits, Penn wrote. 

No use of child nutrition funds

Penn also explained USDA’s decision not to use a fund for a child nutrition program to cover shortfall for SNAP benefits.

The administration wanted to keep that fund fully stocked, he said.

“Child Nutrition Program funds are not a contingency fund for SNAP,” he said. “Using billions of dollars from Child Nutrition for SNAP would leave an unprecedented gap in Child Nutrition funding that Congress has never had to fill with annual appropriations, and USDA cannot predict what Congress will do under these circumstances.” 

The child nutrition program funds school meals, summer meals for children and summer EBT benefits for low-income families with children. The school lunch program alone serves about 29 million children per day, Penn said.

Democrats call USDA plan ‘not acceptable’

Democrats expressed dismay that the administration opted not to fully fund November benefits.

“Just now paying the bare minimum to partially fund SNAP is not enough, and it is not acceptable,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state wrote in a social media post Monday.

“Trump should immediately work to fully fund benefits under the law,” added Murray, who serves as the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. 

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the House Appropriations panel, said “this was entirely avoidable,” noting that Trump “chose to hold hungry children, seniors, and veterans hostage in a selfish and cruel attempt to gain political advantage.” 

“Now, only partial benefits will be sent out late, and families will go hungry, while this administration continues to host lavish parties for their billionaire donors and political allies,” the Connecticut Democrat said.

She added that “we are in this situation because of a lack of political will on the part of the Trump administration” and urged USDA “to put politics aside and use the money they have available to ensure families do not go hungry.”

Speaker Johnson defends Trump

At a press conference Monday, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson continued to defend Trump’s handling of the SNAP payments.

The president is “desperate for SNAP benefits to flow to the American citizens who desperately rely upon it,” Johnson said.

The Louisiana Republican echoed Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ Friday claim that sought to justify her agency’s refusal to tap into the contingency fund to pay for SNAP. 

“The way we always understood it was: The contingency fund could not be used legally if the underlying fund was suspended,” Johnson said. 

He blamed congressional Democrats for voting against the stopgap spending bill and noted that two judges, McConnell and Indira Talwani in Massachusetts federal court, who separately ordered payments resume, were appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama.

Talwani ruled Friday that the USDA plan to pause SNAP was illegal — but gave the Trump administration until Monday to respond to her finding before she decides on a motion to force the benefits be paid despite the ongoing government shutdown.

Johnson also acknowledged the complex logistics of releasing the money to states. 

“So, it’s not as easy as hitting go send on a computer — you gotta go through and recalculate partial payments to the 42 million recipients of the program,” Johnson said. “That puts a huge burden on states and on the feds to try to figure that out in short order.”

A produce cooler at Willy Street Co-op in Madison, Wisconsin. FoodShare funding from the federal government will stop Nov. 1 if the federal government shutdown continues. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Milwaukee elected leaders gathered outside the county’s Marcia P. Coggs Health and Human Services Building on Friday, providing updates to residents and praising the community’s resilience amidst the ongoing federal government shutdown. 

“Milwaukee County is strong and resilient, but the health and wellbeing of our residents and families should never be casualties of political fights in Washington,” said Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. “Until this federal shutdown ends, we will do what we always do: look out for our neighbors and step up to help in times of need. I’m grateful to our community partners and encourage every resident who is able to join us in caring for our community.”  

Beginning Saturday Nov. 1, people across the state who depend on the Wisconsin FoodShare assistance program will be at risk of losing that aid, due to the discontinuation of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as a result of the government shutdown.

A Milwaukee County press release said that over 230,000 local residents will be left without food assistance “with no clear end in sight”. The release also noted that if the shutdown continues into December, then Section 8 housing benefits will also be on the chopping block. This aspect of the shutdown could lead the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services to not pay federally mandated portions of rent costs, placing a strain on tenants and small-scale landlords. 

“I have been clear as day: no one wins in a shutdown,” said U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin. “Republicans and Donald Trump need to finally come to the table to end this shutdown and lower health care costs for families…Wisconsin families just want to live a comfortable life where they can put food on the table, afford their health care and monthly bills, and not have Washington politics butting into their life. While Wisconsin’s House Republicans are on day 42 of a paid vacation and President Trump is just coming home from another foreign trip, Wisconsinites are going to wake up tomorrow to find their health care premiums are skyrocketing and food assistance is being taken from them. Enough is enough.”

 

Food drive donations are being accepted at locations across the county including:

• Milwaukee City Hall (200 E. Wells St)
• Milwaukee County Courthouse (901 N. 9th St)
• Zeidler Municipal Building (841 N. Broadway)
• Marcia P. Coggs Health & Human Services Center (1230 W. Cherry St)
• Hillview (1615 S. 22nd Street)
• Fiserv Forum (1111 Vel R. Phillips Avenue)
• All Milwaukee public schools 
• All Milwaukee library branches
• The Mason Temple Church (6058 N. 35th St)
  

Residents can also donate to NourishMKE or Feeding America if they’d like to provide financial assistance to programs. While republicans blame the shutdown on democrats wanting to protect people living in the country without legal documentation, democrats say they’re attempting to preserve Affordable Healthcare Act health insurance subsidies which, if allowed to expire, would lead to inflated health costs for people across the country, including some 310,000 Wisconsinites, many of whom would see their insurance payments rise between 45 and 800%.

“This hunger crisis did not need to happen,” said Congresswoman Gwen Moore in a statement. “The Trump Administration is purposefully withholding $5 billion in contingency funding, so they can inflict maximum pain and hardship on the American people…Unlike what Republicans claim, this won’t only hurt my district, but their constituents throughout Wisconsin, including rural areas. SNAP is a lifeline, not a political weapon.” 

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said he was grateful that neighbors were uniting “so that hunger does not rule the day.” Johnson said, however that, “donations and food drives are a temporary fix. We need resolution to this shutdown so that the federal government can resume the important work we ask of it.”

As the government shutdown continues, federal employees who work in Milwaukee County are also feeling the pressure. Many have been furloughed from their jobs, or are working without pay. At Mitchell International Airport, federal air traffic and security workers are not getting paid, as are Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers. The Veteran Affairs Regional Benefits Office in Milwaukee is closed due to furloughed employees. 

 

Sign on the door of the Dane County Job Center in Madison, Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Unemployed Wisconsinites could lose a week’s jobless benefits if they don’t show up for an interview if a new draft bill becomes law.

The same measure would also turn up the scrutiny on the weekly work searches that people who’ve lost a job must undertake to collect unemployment insurance.

Gov. Tony Evers has repeatedly vetoed bills authored by Republicans in the Legislature that contain those and other changes to Wisconsin’s unemployment compensation system.

In his veto messages, Evers, a Democrat, has consistently criticized GOP lawmakers for trying to change the rules on jobless pay without working through Wisconsin’s joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council.

This time, however, the proposals have come from the advisory council itself.

On Sept. 24, the council voted to advance a bill that was endorsed by both its labor and management members. Despite that unanimous backing, some worker advocates are condemning the draft legislation.

“This is a terrible, terrible bill,” said lawyer Victor Forberger, whose practice focuses on representing people whose claims for unemployment compensation have been rejected by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

State Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), the ranking Democrat on the Assembly’s labor committee, has repeatedly scolded Republican lawmakers for proposing unemployment insurance changes without going through the advisory council.

But after reading the advisory council’s draft legislation, Sinicki said, “I will not be voting for the bill, and we will probably offer an amendment to it.”

Shane Griesbach, a union official who chairs the council’s labor caucus, defends the council proposal, highlighting that it includes an increase in the maximum weekly unemployment benefit for the first time in more than a decade.

“It was a compromise between both labor and management on various issues,” Griesbach told the Wisconsin Examiner.

The draft bill has not yet been formally introduced in the Legislature. On Tuesday, Oct. 28, members of the Assembly Committee on Workforce Development, Labor, and Integrated Employment were told by email to hold their calendars open for a hearing on Nov. 13.

Labor-management negotiations

From the launch of Wisconsin’s unemployment compensation system in 1932 — the first of its kind in the country — the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council has been a standing feature, intended to reflect the interests of both sides.

“The Wisconsin UI advisory council — with five representatives each from labor and management — was designed to balance the needs of workers and employers in unemployment insurance policy,” said Laura Dresser, associate director of the High Road Strategy Center, a think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that focuses on the impact of economic policy and trends on working people.

“It is a good idea, and part of the Wisconsin Idea, to build this sort of policy infrastructure around the people who rely on and fund the system,” Dresser said. “But if either labor or management thinks they can get a better deal from the Legislature than the advisory council, that undermines the policy-making power of the council itself.” 

Among the controversial provisions of the draft bill is a disability pay penalty.

Under the typical protocol for bills that come from the advisory council, Sinicki, as the ranking minority party member of the labor committee would be listed as a coauthor of the legislation.

But Sinicki objects to the bill’s proposed penalty for people with unemployment claims who receive federal disability payments. If that doesn’t change, “I will not put my name on the bill,” Sinicki said

Since 2013, people laid off from work have been denied unemployment compensation if they also received Social Security Disability Income. This summer, a federal judge ended that ban, and the advisory council’s draft bill removes the ban as well.

But the draft bill also includes an “offset” that would claw back money from the SSDI recipient’s jobless pay each week. Over the course of one month, the amount clawed back would equal 50% of the recipient’s monthly disability check.

Earlier this year, DWD proposed to the advisory council ending the SSDI jobless pay ban but deducting 100% of federal disability income.

In September, Sinicki and state Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) introduced their own bill to repeal the SSDI unemployment pay ban and criticized DWD’s offset recommendation. Nine days later, the department told the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council it was dropping the offset proposal entirely and simply recommending an end to the SSDI jobless pay ban.  

The advisory council brought back the offset, however, at 50% rather than 100% of the federal disability income, in the draft bill approved Sept. 24.

Forberger said that at either 100% or 50%, requiring an offset against disability income is likely to wipe out jobless pay for many SSDI recipients.

Resurrecting vetoed changes

Other provisions in the advisory council draft have previously passed the state Legislature with only Republican votes, and then been vetoed by Evers.

‘Ghosting’ interviews: Unemployment insurance recipients accused of “ghosting” a scheduled job interview — failing to show up — would lose their weekly jobless pay for that week. A recipient would also lose benefits for a week for declining a job offer or failing to report on the first scheduled work day after being offered a job.

Republican lawmakers this year passed legislation that also would penalize “ghosting” interviews and rejecting job offers. No Democrats voted for the legislation, and Evers vetoed the bill, AB 169, on Friday. 

“I object to creating additional barriers for individuals applying for and receiving benefits from a program that is designed to support people and families experiencing economic hardship, as well as creating additional mandates for the department in administering these benefits,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

Forberger said the ghosting penalties — which have been introduced and vetoed in past years as well — are unneeded, with unemployment insurance claims remaining at close to record lows.

“We’ve still got a huge worker shortage in the state,” Forberger said. “This does absolutely nothing.”

Work search audit quotas: Another provision in the advisory council bill would require DWD to audit the work searches of half of all people making unemployment claims.

Evers vetoed a bill in 2023 that included the work search audit requirement.

“I object to this bill because the department already has substantial eligibility requirements and fraud prevention mechanisms in place to protect the unemployment system from potentially fraudulent activity,” Evers wrote at the time.

In response to a Wisconsin Examiner inquiry, DWD Communications Director Haley McCoy said via email that the department’s unemployment insurance division “has a well-established work search auditing program.” People making unemployment insurance claims must report their required work searches each week, which are subject “to random or targeted audits,” McCoy said.

McCoy declined to specify the department’s current audit frequency, calling that information “sensitive” and confidential “to protect program integrity.”

Identity proofing requirements: The advisory council bill includes new requirements for unemployment insurance applicants to prove their identities, and would require DWD to follow specific steps, including comparing applications for jobless pay against databases tracking death records, employment records, citizenship and immigration records.

On Friday Evers vetoed AB 168, which included similar identity proofing requirements.

“The department already implements comprehensive fraud prevention strategies, including identity verification, making the proposal to mandate identity proofing both unnecessary and overly burdensome of claimants,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

A benefit increase

The advisory council bill includes a one-time $25 increase in the maximum weekly payment that goes to jobless workers: to $395 a week starting in 2026, from $370 a week.

“The last time unemployment has seen an increase in the weekly benefit rate was 2013,” said Griesbach, the council’s labor caucus chair.

Griesbach said that benefit increase, the unemployment insurance clawback for disability pay, the “ghosting’ penalty and the work search audit requirements were all products of the advisory council’s consensus process.

“All those things were part of an agreed-upon bill between labor and management and negotiation and compromise by both groups,” Griesbach told the Wisconsin Examiner. “It was an agreed-upon bill, and there were a lot of different topics that were discussed, and that was the compromise that was reached.”

Forberger said the proposed benefit increase keeps Wisconsin’s top unemployment benefit well below other Midwestern states.

In Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois, the maximum weekly benefit is at least $500 a week or more. Only Indiana, with a maximum benefit of $390 a week, would be lower, he said.

“This is a paltry increase,” Forberger said of the Wisconsin proposal. “It’s nothing to brag about.”

The advisory council bill’s increase is also less than DWD had recommended in its proposals to the council. The department proposed raising the maximum weekly  benefit by $127 in 2026, to $497, and then indexing the maximum to the consumer price index in 2027.

Sinicki acknowledged that by giving new life to Republican-authored unemployment insurance bills that she’s sharply criticized in the past, the advisory council’s bill has put her in a difficult position.

The ghosting penalty, for example, is an “attempt to throw more people off of unemployment insurance,” Sinicki said. She also voiced skepticism of increasing work search audits without funding more staff positions.

But the disability penalty, she said, is more than she would be willing to support.

“This puts me in a very tough spot, and also puts a lot of Democrats in a very tough spot,” Sinicki said. “As a Democrat, I cannot vote to take away benefits from disabled people.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

A demonstrator stands outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wisc., in 2022 to commemorate missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Researchers have launched a new survey to determine the prevalence of brain injuries in Native survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, recalled a Native mother in her 30s who started having memory loss and other dementia-like symptoms.

The woman had suffered multiple blows to her head and falls at the hands of her husband over the years. He had wanted to disable her, to make it more difficult for her to keep her children if she tried to leave him, Echo-Hawk said.

Many Native women have traumatic brain injury symptoms as a direct result of abuse, Echo-Hawk said. Tribal health advocates and groups serving survivors have long been aware of the problem, she said, but there has been little national research documenting the extent of it.

“It’s a very difficult thing to see,” said Echo-Hawk, of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. “This is a pressing concern.”

The Urban Indian Health Institute, an Indigenous health research group, this month launched a first-of-its-kind national survey of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women to determine the prevalence of brain injuries in Native survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. The goal is to illuminate the extent of the problem, guide clinicians, raise public awareness and direct resources.

A 2015 study in Arizona found a higher incidence of traumatic brain injuries in Native women in that state, but the new survey is the first national, Indigenous-led study of its kind, according to the institute.

It comes as domestic violence groups across the nation are struggling with federal funding delays caused by the government shutdown. As the impasse continues, the Trump administration has furloughed grant workers at the Office on Violence Against Women, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Traumatic brain injuries can cause memory loss, confusion and long-term behavioral changes and raise the risk of dementia. Some abusers intentionally inflict traumatic brain injuries on their victims because it doesn’t leave visible bruises, according to the Brain Injury Association of America.

The link between domestic violence and traumatic brain injuries has been documented in women generally, and the effects of such injuries have been studied in former football players and veterans. But research on Native communities is lacking. Even when victims show up in ERs, their cases can go underreported.

In a previous survey of survivors, some Native women reported broken teeth, evidence of blows to the head, Echo-Hawk said. But pushing and strangulation also can cause traumatic brain injuries.

Violence is a public health crisis among American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women, who are overrepresented in intimate partner violence statistics. Fifty-five percent report experiencing intimate partner violence, and a disproportionate number of Native women and girls are murdered or go missing.

In a 2020 survey by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 44% of American Indian and Alaska Native women reported being raped in their lifetime.

“People are losing their children because of memory loss and dementia,” Echo-Hawk said. “When people are experiencing intimate partner violence, they end up in ERs. Their children suffer. The whole community suffers as a direct result. And the same with the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.”

Doctors and other hospital staff should receive more training on brain injuries and should know which communities are most likely to experience violence, said Nikki Cristobal, policy and research specialist for Pouhana ʻO Nā Wāhine, a nonprofit domestic violence resource center for Native Hawaiians.

Cristobal said one survivor told her clinicians hadn’t performed a brain scan or traumatic brain injury assessment on her, despite her ongoing psychological and cognitive symptoms. “It never occurred to anybody,” she said.

“We have to talk more about it,” said Cristobal, who worked with Echo-Hawk on developing the survey and is the principal investigator for the Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women, Girls and Mahu state task force.

Native communities, including Native Hawaiians, have endured long-term, intergenerational traumas during colonization and forced assimilation that can’t be ignored when targeting the disproportionate rates of violence, Cristobal said.

“It’s the undercurrent,” Cristobal said. “It’s the precursor.”

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.